Unleash your inner ‘MacGyver’

When Richard Dean Anderson began piecing together unusual weapons, high-powered listening devices, transmitters and the like for the 1984 role of Angus MacGyver for the TV show of the same surname, little did he realize that during the run of the series his character would be imitated and satirized and become the pseudonym for Mr. or Ms. “Fixits” who seemingly could make/fix anything with little more than a Band-Aid.

The imitators are gone, the satires have long gone stale, but the spirit of MacGyver lives on in the form of author Cy Tymony.

Tymony, who confesses that as a boy he used his science books to create punishments for bullies and professes to have grown up to publish books and magazine articles in the scientific field, has now written a book of practical science: “Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things: How to Turn a Penny Into a Radio, Make a Flood Alarm With an Aspirin, Change Milk Into Plastic....”

In the book, Tymony outlines the many ways that even the technically disinclined can manufacture useful gadgets out of the most ordinary items.

The author claims that readers can create a survival kit inside a watch, a theft alarm from a breath strip and more.

The truly sneaky -- or the die-hard “MacGyver” fans -- can hear the author hold forth on his own uses, and modifications made by others, of such common items as Monopoly game pieces, dental floss, magic markers (the list is endless) at a reading and book signing Wednesday.

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Cy Tymony

Where: Barnes & Noble, 1201 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica

When: 7:30 p.m.

Info: (310) 260-9110